By Edward Nawotka
Conventional wisdom says that first you build a platform — be it a blog, a large twitter following, or something else — and then you write a book. But this formula often only works, initially at least, if the writer is interested in translating their online subject and expanding it into a book.
But what about the other way around, what if a writer starts with a book and then wants to develop a platform to go along with it? Does this appear, in our cynical world, appear to be too contrived a conceit to develop an audience? Perhaps to some, but most of us — saturated as we are with marketing — recognize this as an opportunity to connect with readers and, vice versa, for us to connect with an author.
But is one preferable over the other. If you’re moving from blog to book, is there a risk of having burned through your best material online? Drying up the well of inspiration? Or does the opportunity of writing a book offer new motivation to the writer.
On the other hand, does moving from a book risk taxing a writer beyond the herculean effort of putting together the original text. And what if a writer isn’t suited to blog or Twitter — can they get away with it?
We’ve wondered before, “Should I Tweet?”
The key, as always, is to do the very best work you can in whatever format you choose to pursue.
2 Comments
These are all excellent questions but to answer them you have to look at what your book is about: non fiction or fiction? If it’s non fiction, it’s easy to start building your platform first: you’re an expert in your field and everyone loves value-added blogs full of expert content – and posts being short by definition can never exhaust your expertise, there’s no risk of burnout. Or you publish your book and then build your platform, it really doesn’t matter, it works both ways.
For fiction, it’s different. It doesn’t really work both ways. Building your internet presence should go hand in hand with your book publishing and even precede it to help launch your book. Amanda Hocking is said to have been very adept with Twitter and John Locke certainly knew how to take advantage of his blog posts (through the “loyalty transfer” mechanism)…
I suppose that a book can launch a platform if the former goes viral, but traditional publishers typically don’t want to touch a prospective author sans an existing user base, social media presence, etc.
Phil Simon
http://www.theageoftheplatform.com